1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to processing program content and information in a video broadcast.
2. Background Art
The ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) digital television standard provides for the use of a packetized stream to transmit program content and information corresponding to multiple broadcast channels. In addition, the ATSC standard provides that a physical RF channel in an ATSC signal is divided into a number of virtual sub-channels, each corresponding to a particular broadcast channel.
In order to map transmitted content to broadcast channels in an ATSC signal, an ATSC packetized stream includes information that allows a digital television receiver to generate a channel map. Typically, channel map information is transmitted in two different portions of the ATSC packetized stream: the Program Map Table (PMT) and the Virtual Channel Table (VCT).
Conventional digital receiver designs expend processing power and cost to process duplicate channel map information contained in an ATSC signal.